Saturday 9 October 2010

Thin but shiny

I was at the supermarket this afternoon picking up bacon, eggs, sausages, black pudding and mushrooms for a family breakfast I'll be cooking for my dad & brother tomorrow morning.

On my way back to the car I passed a couple loading shopping bags into their car boot. I only caught a snatch of their conversation, but I could tell they were midway through a domestic. "Why did you..." "But you said..."

It struck me that being single might suck mightily, but it does mean I miss out on an awful lot of tense, angry, and frustrated arguments. As silver linings go it's thin but shiny.

It is much easier to get on with a person as a friend than it is to get on with that same person as a partner. A friend's flaws are foibles, easily accepted, loveable even. As a partner those flaws aren't so easy to laugh off. They grate. They irritate. They become intensely unbearable.

Couples have to work together, mutually agree on a whole range of choices. Which brand of baked beans to buy, the colour of paint for the living room, whether to go and visit Aunt Flo at the weekend. Different values need to be reconciled. Washing up immediately after dinner versus plonking everything in the sink until there isn't a clean dish in the house. Toilet seat up, or toilet seat down. Chores have to be divided. Who cooks? Who cleans? Who mows the lawn? Who takes the bins out?

Inevitably conflict and resentment seep in to the relationship. The result? Squabbling and bickering. A tiff, a quarrel, a barney. A lot of stress.

I didn't realise I wasn't missing it until today.

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